Andreas: Yet I hold good memories on Saint-Luc, because of the
friends and aquaintances it has left me. We shared the same passion,
we all wanted to do comics. After Saint-Luc I worked with Antonio Cossu,
Philippe Foerster and Philippe Berthet for - I don't remember exactly how long
- six to twelve months. We had rented some space and made a workshop out of it.
We had much fun. We discussed eachother's work, that was a lot of fun.
Talking to comic book artists these days, its always about rights of
authorship, contracts and the like. It's no longer about what's really
interesting about the trade.

You worked in the same space, yet everyone had his own work...

Andreas: Everyone did his own thing. We just started. I drew the
first episode of Révélations posthumes in collaboration with François Rivière
and made sketches for Eddy Paape. Antonio Cossu made drawings and the
layout for a small business magazine. Philippe Berthet and Philippe Foerster
worked on a book about hunting in Belgium; Berthet drew the animals and
Foerster did the backgrounds and characters. That was the beginning,
we became professional slowly but certainly. Then followed the first
festivals of Angoulême, where we made our first important contacts...

Andreas: That went about as follows: Paape had had a scenario from
André-Paul Duchâteau for a while. He had made some character sketches, but had
not had time to draw the story. He asked me if I wanted to sketch it.
In the beginning I wasn't fast enough for him of course: he inkted in a flash,
while it took me three days to do the sketches. He called me continuously.
That was good, because he taught me to work under pressure.
Currently I like to work fast as well to remind myself that I'm telling a story!
If you are working too long on a plate - making Le retour de Cromwell Stone I spent up
to three weeks on one plate - you seem to string standalone illustrations
together, rather than tell a story. Then you lose the feeling that you are
telling a story. I rather like to keep a certain rhythm, so that the
storyline remains clear.